Baby and the one surviving pup came home today. The mom is puffed up but eating. She's ignoring the baby ("Milky"). She doesn't try to get away from him, but he can't figure out what to do with her nipple even when his mouth is on it.

Milky is smallish, 80-85 grams. He is wobbly but thankfully not at all lethargic. The vets recommended kitten replacement milk (I know, I know). We're feeding Critical Care mixed with water and a tiny bit of the milk (please don't yell at me). He is nibbling at tiny amounts of hay. We're stimulating his butt and he is peeing well, and pooping some. We'll be getting up in a couple of hours to feed him and give Baby more analgesic.

The vets' first impression was that Milky was premature, because he wasn't fully furred. Well, he never will be--he's a skinny. Pooksie said at the beginning of this saga that one of the original pair was a skinny.

Is it possible, with guinea pigs, to express a little milk to give the baby the right idea? Might be too stressful for Baby anyway, what with her surgery. With human babies you stroke the cheek to get the rooting reflex; I wonder if there's an equivalent reflex in guinea pigs?

So sorry about the others and poor mama having to have a c-section. 80-85 grams isn't too bad. In litters of 4 or so, that is about the birthweight for babies my foster girls have had. Between there and 100 grams.

Of course, mine have come into rescue already pregnant, often with not the best previous nutrition.

Adorable!!!!!! He looks half haired. :-)
I have had luck with holding mom,on my chest, head toward me, slightly on her side and helping the little one latch on (his head toward her back end with his body along her belly) to nurse and just holding them a while.
This helped my 50 gram runt to get some private nursing time. We also supplemented her with CC,mixed with pedialyte and a bit of the kitten milk replacer. The KMR seemed to be what enticed her to eat from a tiny spoon and over the course of several days, I used less and less of the KMR to get her to have more CC.

Once she was taking more of the CC mix on her own, she was eating veggies and hay well too. She was just slower, so we separated her from her siblings to eat.

It took nearly half a day or more for Mochi to get used to her babies when she was a new mom. I was so scared the babies would starve but eventually, Mochi came through with the help of an older calmer sow. It's always nice to have a support system to lean on.

Thanks for the encouragement, y'all (including LER). We go on vacation Saturday and will take these two with us. We'll take turns staying home with them.

One of the tricky parts is that me and John both have to go in to work. My workplace is very close but they are getting weird lately -- "face time" has become nearly as important as getting your job done.

I suspect, actually, that a needleless syringe would work as a piggie milk pump, since early breast pumps for women were more or less of that design. The problem would be inducing letdown.
I wonder if a little of the KMR on her nipples might induce him to associate them with food?

Thanks for asking, Cindy. We're off to Cape Cod for a week vacation, bringing the two Problem Pigs, lots of equipment, and lots of good luck wishes from kind people. Four not-sick pigs are staying home, with a friend looking in daily.

Whiskers, the other pregnant dump, is under the excellent care of LedasMom, who also adopted the two boars. Wish her luck too, because I think Whiskers is close to delivering.